It’s easy to ignore flight simulator games, isn’t it? They sit there, happily occupying their little niche, looking practically identical to one another, apart from the times they flirt surreptitiously with one of the World Wars. In an industry dominated by growling space marines and the disembodied heads of Japanese doctors, it’s hard for a little game about grey aeroplanes to get any attention. That's why Tom Clancy’s H.A.W.X, with its ludicrous full stops, probably didn’t get the recognition it deserved when it took to the skies early last year; the screenshots, videos and even the demo just felt tiresomely unoriginal. Yet, crucially, H.A.W.X was pushing flight games in a promising new direction while the world looked on, disinterested.

Thankfully then, Tom Clancy’s H.A.W.X 2 retains its predecessor’s most glamorous feature. No, not the full stops, but OFF mode. A double jab of the trigger when soaring through the skies in your aerofighter’s cockpit will yank the camera back to a wide tracking-shot of your surprisingly sexy plane as it cruises at high altitude. You can still do all the things that you’d expect to be able to do, like shooting missiles and looking at the red diamonds floating tantalisingly in the sky (a Clancy mainstay). However, with wild sweeps of the analogue stick, you can send your plane through daft, Top Gun-esque lunges, barrel rolls and somersaults, literally dodging incoming missiles with nothing more than guile and technique. Anyone who thinks H.A.W.X 2 is a stale flight simulation need only mess about in OFF mode for five minutes, to see how wrong they were and retire their Clancy badge to the NRA’s local collection depot.

Unfortunately, this reckless sense of fun doesn’t translate to the story, which is as typically Clancy as a baseball cap and a Republican vote. There are elements of Call Of Duty’s fractured storytelling, as you jump between the cockpits of Russian, American and British planes while a very serious but largely unintelligible yarn is spun on the ground below. It’s all got something to do with nuclear weapons, the Middle East, and post-Cold War tension. It’s like the writers were told to come up with something ‘current’ five minutes before home time.

It matters little, of course; story may not be the game's strongest aspect but it doesn't impede enjoyment of the gameplay. Far more interesting are the ways in which Ubisoft Romania has tried to inject a dose of variety into H.A.W.X 2’s g-force battered arm. Where the first game offered little beyond dogfighting, bombing raids and a few escort missions (involving dogfighting and bombing raids), H.A.W.X 2 spices things up with take-offs, landings and infra-red intelligence gathering.

The first two are novel at best, capturing the oddly calm reality of firing an improbably heavy metal tube into the sky and then catching it again without killing everyone, but controlling spy drones as they pick out enemy strongholds gets tiresome rather quickly. They operate similarly to Call Of Duty 4’s AC-130 mission, albeit without the startling juxtaposition of jingoistic hollering and horrifying guilt, but soon become a chore.

It’s almost as if Ubisoft Romania wasn’t confident enough in H.A.W.X 2’s core mechanics, when in truth, the dogfighting rarely gets old. The combination of the standard chase-and-evade drama of aerial combat with the twitchy-freedom of OFF mode is a sustainable thrill, and when it’s ignored for plot-driving minigames, which is what these missions fundamentally are, it’s a shame. Switching between in-cockpit accuracy and OFF-mode bravado becomes as instinctive as raising the iron sights in an FPS, and while H.A.W.X. 2 can never match the intensity of Call Of Duty or Battlefield, it’s significantly more exciting and tactile than its aeronautical peers.

Much more enjoyable, then, is H.A.W.X ramshackle co-op play. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with the functionality of playing through the story missions with real-world wingmen; it’s more a question of reliability. When flying alone, your AI buddies will keep in formation, only disappearing on command or if the story demands it. The same can rarely be said for the easily-distracted generation of trigger happy gamers, and you’ll often find yourself spinning towards the photo- realistic earth below as your partners have flown off to investigate some low-flying pigeons or something equally as unhelpful. Still, any frustration is soon relieved by waves of cross-mic laughter.

There’s no questioning the game’s entertainment value, though. Along with campaign and co-op, there are Survival and Arcade modes to toy around with (both more a distraction than a time sink). And for those who enjoy peering out of the window on long haul flights, there’s H.A.W.X 2’s sedate alternative to warfare, Free Flight. Pick a plane and enjoy the gorgeously rendered views, free from the fear of a MiG appearing from a cloud and ruining your holiday.

Tom Clancy’s H.A.W.X 2 is proof that it’s always worth diving into a gaming niche from time to time. While it may lack the grunt, confidence and sustained excitement to truly compete with the industry’s big hitters, H.A.W.X 2’s missile-ducking, bogey-outmanoeuvring nonsense is a rare thrill. After all, isn’t that what gaming’s all about? Exploring avenues of escapism not possible in any other medium? Y.E.S. Full stops and all.